CHAPTER XIV
THE MELTING OF MILLIONS
IT would have been worse than useless to have tried to jump into thebreach just before the car started. At the least, Tom Halstead wouldhave been made a prisoner by these desperate plotters.
Free, though he could not immediately aid Mr. Delavan, the youngskipper could at least carry word of what he had seen. He could rouseEben Moddridge to action, or, anyway, to the putting up of money thatwould put other and more capable men in action.
Yet the boy felt like grinding his teeth in chagrin and bitterdisappointment as he saw that swift touring car glide swiftly off thegrounds to the road.
He had started to run after the car, hoping to overtake it before itgot fully under speed, and to catch on in some way behind. But almostat once he saw that there was nothing to catch hold of at the rear, andimmediately afterwards the car shot ahead at a speed of forty miles anhour.
“Whee! I hope the officers stop them, somewhere, for speeding,” thoughtHalstead, with a half hopeful grin as he slowed down to a walk. Itwould hardly do, however, to expect the car to be stopped for goingonly forty miles an hour on Long Island.
As the young skipper stepped out, panting, through the gate, heremembered the necessity of proceeding cautiously, lest he run afoulof Justin Bolton, who could not be far away, and was on foot. Thatscheming financier carried a revolver, and had shown himself not slowto use it. After half an hour Halstead felt that the danger of meetingBolton was slight, and hurried on faster.
It was late in the evening when Tom Halstead entered the hotel groundsat East Hampton. A short distance away he had halted long enough toremove all excessive amounts of dust from clothing and shoes. In orderto appear neither excited nor in haste, he sauntered slowly enoughthrough the grounds, approached the veranda, stood there two or threeminutes, walked about a bit in the lobby—long enough to see that twoof the New York reporters were still on the scene—and at last escaped,without attracting special notice, up the stairs. Now he hastened tothe door of Mr. Moddridge’s rooms, and knocked briskly.
“It’s Halstead, Mr. Moddridge,” he replied, in answer to a shakingquery from within. The door flew open like magic.
“Halstead? Where have you been all these hours?” came the peevishquestion, as Eben Moddridge, in negligee attire and looking like a morethan ill man, faced the young skipper. “You——”
Tom went inside, closed the door, and led the nervous one to an innerroom. Here the motor boat boy poured out the whole story of what he hadbeen through.
“Why, your new boy, Butts, hasn’t been near me with a word of this,”gasped Moddridge, presently.
“That must have been because he didn’t know you, of course,” evadedHalstead, easily. “But now, Mr. Moddridge, it will be necessary to pullall your wits together if you’re to save your friend and yourself. Whatshould be the first move?”
“Oh, dear,” cried the nervous one, pacing the floor, “I honestly don’tknow. I don’t see my way. Why did Delavan ever allow himself to getinto such a dreadful mess? If he had followed my advice——”
“If your advice is any good, sir,” put in Tom, crisply, “it ought to beuseful, just now, in finding out the way to extricate Mr. Delavan fromhis present troubles. Now, what ought to be the first step?”
With most men Halstead would have thought himself presuming to go sofar. But the case was tremendously pressing, and it took more than alittle to get Eben Moddridge started.
By slow degrees Moddridge pulled himself together. He wouldn’t hear tocalling in the reporters and making the whole story public as far as itwas known.
“The public would regard it all as a cock-and-bull invention, gottenup to hide Delavan’s supposed flight,” the nervous one rather sensiblydeclared. “And, if we were to drag Bolton’s name in, Bolton would bevery likely to give us the trouble of proving the whole story, mostlyon your unsupported word, Halstead, with a little corroboration, ofcourse, from your very eccentric new steward—Butts, did you call him?Besides, if Frank Delavan were here, I think he would prefer to schemesecretly to punish Justin Bolton, instead of going after him openly.”
“Who is this Bolton?” asked Tom Halstead.
“A man whom Delavan helped to make the start of his fortune. But Boltonis unscrupulous and dangerous; Frank had to drop him years ago.”
The idea of sending for detectives Eben Moddridge also declined toentertain.
“No matter how secretly we may think we hire detectives,” he objected,“it is pretty sure to leak out. The Wall Street public would take thatas a sensational feature, and P. & Y. would drop lower than ever in themarket. No, no, Halstead; we won’t think of hiring detectives until wehave tried other means. Now, what remains to be done!”
Tom Halstead pondered before he answered:
“Bolton’s intention seems to be to take Mr. Delavan off Long Island onthat racing launch. It will probably be at some point within twentyor thirty miles of here, either east or west. If we could put enoughmen on watch, we could find out when that launch attempts to put outto sea. But you object to using detectives. I wonder if there are anyother men we could trust, instead of using detectives? Say,” proposedthe young skipper, suddenly, “you both trust your broker, Coggswell,don’t you?”
“Very thoroughly,” admitted Moddridge, pausing in his nervous walk tostare hard at the young skipper.
“Then why not get hold of Coggswell, at his home to-night, over thetelephone? Ask him to send out some of his clerks whom he knows to bereliable. He might even send out a few other young men that he couldvouch for?”
“But what good would they be?” asked Eben Moddridge.
“I can take the map of this coast, sir, and lay out stations for theseyoung men, so that there’ll be one or two of ’em every few miles eastand west of here. I can give them perfect descriptions of the racinglaunch. They can be provided with marine glasses. Just the instant thatany one of them spots the racing launch he can telephone me. Then,whether the launch has Mr. Delavan aboard, and is putting out to sea,or is going after him, I can do my best to follow in the ‘Rocket.’Since you are opposed to hiring detectives, Mr. Moddridge, that’s thebest thing I can see that is left to do.”
After some further talk the nervous financier agreed to this. He calledup Broker Coggswell by ’phone, at the latter’s home in New York. Mr.Coggswell agreed to send down twenty capable and honest young men bythe earliest train in the morning.
That being all that could be done for the present, Captain Tom Halsteadreturned to the “Rocket.” Joe Dawson and Hank Butts were both up,waiting for him. For the next hour, sitting on the deck house of theboat, in the dark, still watches of the night, talking in whispers,the boys discussed all the latest phases of the puzzling affair. ThenTom turned in below, Joe doing likewise, leaving Butts on deck for thefirst watch.
“He can be wholly depended upon, can’t he, Tom?” Dawson asked.
“Who? Hank Butts? Joe, even though Hank has struggled into one of Jed’suniforms, he may still look like a Simple Simon, but don’t lose anysleep worrying about Hank!”
Early in the morning the young skipper was astir again. Hiring abicycle he wheeled rapidly to the next railway station above EastHampton. There the young men sent by Broker Coggswell left the train.Their leader reported to Halstead with the whispered watchword providedby the New York broker. Tom led them off in private, unfolded the maphe had brought with him, and assigned to each young man the stationhe was to watch day and night. For this purpose the young men weresent away in pairs. When the instructions had been given and fullyunderstood, Halstead leisurely pedaled back to East Hampton.
“Those young fellows all look bright,” he thought. “If they servefaithfully, they may be able to give us the very warning that we shallneed.”
Eben Moddridge, who rarely slept more than two or three hours at atime, was awake when the young skipper called on him. Moddridge hadarranged for a direct wire from his room to Coggswell’s office in NewYork, and was fever
ishly awaiting the hour of nine, when the greatStock Exchange would open for the day’s dealings in money.
“I feel as though my death sentence must come through this instrument,”groaned the nervous financier, tapping the telephone.
At last the call came. Now Moddridge had abundant excuse for beingnervous. The day in New York opened with P. & Y. at 87.
“Two points lower,” sighed the nervous one, “and the bankers will beginto call in the loans with which Frank and I have been buying Steel.”
Half an hour later P. & Y. touched 85.
“We’ve got to put up some money to the banks now,” stated Coggswell.“But Steel has been doing a little. If you authorize me, I can sell outsome Steel and allied securities, and meet the first demand from thebanks on your account.”
“What shall I do?” shivered Moddridge, turning appealingly to the“Rocket’s” skipper.
“Why, I don’t know a blessed thing about the game,” Tom admitted,promptly. “But I should take Coggswell’s advice. He seems to have aclear head.”
Eben Moddridge acted on the suggestion. But the New York newspaperswere printing columns about the disappearance of Delavan, and moreabout the shakiness of P. & Y. stock. By noon the P. & Y. stock haddropped to 81. Coggswell had closed out more of the Delavan-Moddridgebuyings in Steel, and thus had averted a crash for those interests.
“If Steel will only go up as P. & Y. goes down,” smiled Halsteadcheerily, “you will be able to keep even.”
“That is, one debt will wipe out the other, and leave Frank and myselfpenniless,” replied Eben Moddridge, with a ghastly face.
The Stock Exchange closed for the day with P. & Y. at 76, that is, ata selling price of seventy-six dollars per share, instead of a hundredand two dollars per share as it had been forty-eight hours earlier. Sofar, by sales of Steel and its allied securities, Broker Coggswell hadbeen able to keep the Delavan-Moddridge interests from going wholly tosmash.
“But there’s to-morrow to face,” almost shrieked the nervous financier.“To-day millions of our money have literally melted away. If to-morrowbrings no change in our luck, we shall both be ruined!”
The only change of the next day was to carry P. & Y. as low as 71,where it remained for the time being. Having between three and fourmillions of dollars left in private funds, Moddridge, shaking like aleaf, had ordered Coggswell to turn this last remnant of his fortuneinto the joint Delavan-Moddridge interests. Thus again the banks hadbeen staved off for a little while.
“But the next drop in P. & Y. will eat up all our Steel investments,and Frank and I won’t have another penny to turn in,” sobbed thenervous one. “Then the banks will have to close us out to savethemselves. Frank Delavan and I will be beggars!”
Tottering to the bed in the adjoining room, Eben Moddridge threwhimself across it, sobbing hysterically.
Tom Halstead, however, gazed after the nervous financier with a new,deeper feeling of respect.
“I don’t understand very much about this Wall Street game, and myhead is lined with a maze of figures,” the young skipper mutteredto himself. “But there’s a heap of the man in you, Moddridge. Whenyou might have saved a very decent fortune to yourself, you threw itinto the whirlpool to try to protect your absent friend. Yon may bea nervous wreck, but hang me if you aren’t a whole lot of a man atbottom!”